Stronghold Crusader Extreme Preview

You don't get that many units in modern 3D engines

First, a quick history lesson. The Stronghold series, Firefly's historic RTS franchise, has sold four million copies. That came as somewhat of a shock to me. But there it is. In fact, in Germany, Stronghold was the second best selling game of 2001 across all formats. Amazingly it outsold GTA 3, which also came out in Germany that year, something Firefly reminds Take Two about "at every possible occasion". And now Firefly is rewarding that loyalty with some good old fashioned fan service - Stronghold Crusader Extreme, an update to the original Stronghold Crusader.

Chances are if you're reading this it's because you've played one of the Stronghold games in the past, so I won't bore you with a detailed summary of how the game works. What I will say, however, is that Extreme is an apt title. You can now have 10,000 units on screen. That's right. 10,000.

This seems ridiculous, but it actually works, somehow. Graphically they all kind of meld into each other, forming huge blobs on the mini map. You'll never see all of the troops separated - this just wouldn't be technically possible, even on the 2D engine. But it's still an impressive, and imposing sight. When you see an enemy force heading towards your castle base it feels like you're about to be overrun by a deadly swarm.

In Extreme the troops keep pumping out of new mini castles called outposts. There can be up to 40 of these outposts on any one map, and they automatically feed troops into the battlefield. One of the key objectives in any Extreme skirmish will be to destroy your opponent's outposts in order to stop the constant flow of troops. From there you'll be able to concentrate on his castle and any surrounding defences.

Firefly has implemented new tactical powers to deal with such huge numbers of troops. A meter on the right hand side of the screen slowly fills over time. A number of powers are lined up alongside it, from the weakest at the bottom to the most powerful at the top. For example, you've got a low level arrow volley, good for dealing with ground troops, a rock bombardment, which is useful for taking down enemy buildings, a mass heal and the ability to call in reinforcements.

Whereas the original Crusader was about one castle versus another, there's a lot more going on in Extreme. "Now it's about broader brush strokes," says Simon Bradbury, co-founder of Firefly Studios. "We didn't want to give them just a lot more missions. We wanted to add in gameplay. The whole gameplay is structured around the aim of having more units and the different tactics you need to employ to deal with this number of units."

This is war with a heavy dose of strategy

We had the opportunity to try this out for ourselves with a one on one match with another game journalist. Unfortunately it didn't go to well. Our rush tactics failed miserably as we were kept at bay by thousands of troops from the enemy outposts. Having completely disregarded the castle building side of the match, we were overrun by massive yellow blobs of troops soon after, as our opponent skilfully counter attacked. More evidence, if it was needed, that Extreme will be one for the hardcore.

Crusader Extreme looks like it'll do exactly what it's supposed to, and that's keep the fans tiding over while they wait for Stronghold Crusader 2, something Simon says the team will get round to doing, as well as Stronghold 3, once it's finished with its new PC and Xbox 360 action game Dungeon Hero, due out round about spring time next year. But since Extreme also comes with the original Stronghold Crusader as well as all eight AI opponents (Extreme comes with 16) and bonus campaign from the US-only Warchest pack, a fully featured map editor and Vista compatibility, the package might be a nice introduction for newcomers to the series.

Word of warning though: if you are new, we advise you to play Crusader before you play Extreme when it finally comes out, even if you're an RTS veteran. Stronghold Crusader Extreme is about as hardcore as you can get. "This will give you more of a challenge if you're a Crusader expert. It's about taking a higher view, as a general, not just a captain" says Simon. He's not kidding.

Stronghold Crusader Extreme is due out for PC in June 2008. You can check out part one of our interview with Simon Bradbury, where he discusses the Stronghold series, right here.